You or Someone Like You (23 page)

How is that a pleasure? I said to Howard that it was a pleasure because here, laid before me, was what others truly thought of me. Not every one of them. There were enough silken compliments and self-promotion using my name, enough self-interested protection of me and thus, carefully, of their connections to me, that, as Machiavelli would have pointed out, their respect was crystal clear. They wanted in, and I found myself in
Vanity Fair
terribly powerful. Yet I was guarded against flattery by their anonymously speaking the truth they could not tell me to my face. What a luxury, Howard, what a
pure, unhoped for, rare luxury: To know what others truly think of you. It was, I said to him, a pleasure at the very least to know, if others are wrong about you, how they are wrong. And it is a pleasure to find out that some people, people I liked but had never tried to become close to, that some of these people had in fact come to know me very well. And they honestly liked what they'd found.

This was the way I appeared to the world, so much that was true, so much false, so different to each observer. It made me both sad and happy to see it, there in the magazine.

 

IT WAS IN FEBRUARY, AFTER
David's interview but before the
Vanity Fair
piece came out, that we discovered the emails. It happened because the proceedings of the last two book clubs—the talent managers, then the advertising executives—showed up, more or less verbatim, in a message to several hundred people at the studios, the independents, all the major talent agencies (nine recipients each at William Morris and United Talent Agency), and production companies (eight people at Imagine alone), assorted scout outposts, a selection of literary agencies in London and New York (ICM, for example), and the admin offices in Orlando. These were apparently the seventh and eighth book clubs thus résuméd, and this had been quietly going on for two months. Justin placed a copy of the email on my desk and stepped back to await my reaction.

The operation was completely anonymous; the From address was bc (“S'gotta be ‘book club,'” said Justin) @annerosenbaum.com, and annerosenbaum, it turned out, was merely a shell on a server registered to a nameless entity, “No Information Available.” Not even the recipients knew the sender's identity; Justin had systematically tried to trace its origins. The unifying factor, Justin explained, appeared to be youth: Everyone on the e-list was under thirty. “And heat.”
Heat? “Yeah,” he said. The rising stars in the industry, the ones at the strongest outfits, with the big mentors. Pretty awesome. I should, said Justin, be flattered.

I was still reading. He waited, silently.

I said, They've misspelt a number of things.

He had other emails, anonymous quotes from people in my book clubs about what other people in my book clubs had said about
Babbitt
(some idiocies, and one brilliant, sardonic observation I actually remembered Robert Sillerman making about Sinclair Lewis and Democratic fund-raising in Hollywood), gossip about who I had invited (I never invited Tori Spelling) and who I hadn't, gossip on what people wore, lists of titles I'd assigned.

Find out, I said to Justin, who this is.

He looked uncomfortable. “I've tried,” he said.

Keep trying.

Then after a moment,
Damnit
, I exclaimed, upset, there are detailed comments Ken Ziffren made in my garden. Who is talking?

“
Everyone's
talking. Why else go to a book club?”

To talk to each other, I replied,
in private
, about what they thought of the book, not to talk to the
Hollywood Reporter
about how so-and-so from Paramount had an opinion on—I glanced at the email—Steinbeck's view of violence that explained why the studio was putting Allan Loeb's latest project in turnaround.

Judging from his face, I was missing something.

Look at this, I said. There's even one that forecast the books I'm going to select next. I put my reading glasses on. “So you can get a jump on
The Charterhouse of Parma
,” it read. (“Probability of her choosing it: 92%.”) I took the glasses off.

“If they can't get into the room,” he said. The sentence, to his mind, didn't even bear finishing.

Yes?

So he explained it to me patiently, as to a child. “People always
want in, even the ones phoning in the lunch orders. Why should you shut out the worker bees?”

Well, I said. I hadn't thought of it that way. I drummed my fingers on the desktop.
The Charterhouse of Parma
, I said.

 

Justin found me working on the hyacinth. He was pleased with himself. It radiated; he was leading with his hips.

He laid it on the garden table, stepped back to brief me. Apparently the list was being run by an assistant producer at Miramax, a young woman named Carrie Fein. She was aggressive, talented; he listed the producers who had mentored her, the films she'd worked on.

Do you have a phone number?

He put down another sheet of paper: phone, address, email.

Brilliant. Well done, Justin.

“Hello, this is Carrie,” she said when she picked up.

Right, this is Anne Rosenbaum.

It took several minutes for her voice to come down to its natural register. I said I was impressed by her work. I said this call was not retributive. I was perhaps a bit put out about the comments being broadcast, but I was not interested in the names of those who had passed on information, although I would be fascinated to know how she had gone about it in a general way. So why didn't she come to dinner. How about tonight. Howard would be home around seven. Was she free at eight?

“Oh!” she said. “Sure, I'm free.” I heard her mentally rushing to cancel appointments. “I'll call Michael and Sarah, too,” she said.

Who are Michael and Sarah?

She began backpedaling.

I assume, I said, that they run this little operation with you.

She was relieved to have them in play. Michael Schnayer at Sony. Sarah Adler at CAA. Please invite them, I said. Do you have a pen?

Here's the address.

“Oh,” she said, “I know where you live,” and then instantly: Oh,
God, oh no, it made her sound like a stalker, like the
Scream
franchise or something, honestly—

I'll see you at eight, I said, smiling as I hung up. I turned around and called, Justin? Can you stay for dinner?

 

They had prepared a pitch. It came not quite at the end of the salad. I found the timing slightly aggressive; they could have waited till the main course. I had mentioned Paul McMahon (they were attentive; you could see them trying to calculate my interest in him) when some invisible clock ticked over in all three of them and the plan went into action as previously agreed. Fein led, strongly, with Adler on tactical support in facts and figures and Schnayer batting cleanup (which turned out to consist of charming Howard, to Howard's amusement, and stroking Justin, which Justin took as his due). They were well dressed and very, very smooth. Slightly mannered. They behaved, I remarked to Howard afterward, like they were in some conference room at a studio. “They were,” said Howard. They acted chummy with Sam, who guardedly gulped it down (twenty-four-year-olds who took notice of him, astonishing) and overly solicitous of Denise, who ignored them completely.

How about if they expanded the club to a new medium? said Carrie. They wanted to put Anne Rosenbaum's book club on the Internet. “Officially,” Justin added pointedly, and she acceded to this. But: They'd have an observer at each meeting, to be approved by me, of course, to do notes and reporting. All to be approved by me.

Both my eyebrows were up. Howard's look from the other end of the table made me snap them down again.

Howard asked mildly, “Anne, will you have time for this?”

I thought it over. Oh, by the way, I said, I had to congratulate them on the forecasting of my book choices, which was quite astute. The subject matter was perhaps overly narrow, but there was a decent literary range, and it had given me a number of ideas.

“That's my work,” said Adler.

Fein shot her a very dark look. I saw Justin file this for future use.

Fein said that the report would be distributed to their list and only to their list, and posted to the new website, “which we can build in a week.”

What would be the name.

They looked patient: www.annerosenbaum.com.

Sam rolled his eyes. “What did you think it was going to be, Mom?”

Obviously they had already taken the liberty of registering my domain name. Members would have password access and would post literary criticism, comments, thoughts. I would suggest the critical sources, they could do the research and were thinking of approaching the English departments at Harvard and Stanford and Brown (their alma maters) and (nod to Howard) UCLA of course to supplement, or guest star, as it were, tailored editorials from Stanley Fish and Harold Bloom and James Shapiro and so on. (The obvious choices.) And of course there'd be a forum for participant commentary, said Adler.

Commentary, I said.

“I got some terrific stuff from Lauren Shuler Donner on Merwin,” said Schnayer.

Sam said something.

“What, Sam?” said Howard.

“Geoff Helprin's older brother's at Vertigo,” said Sam. “He's on the list, and Geoff brought to class what James L. Brooks told you he hates about late Wordsworth. My English teacher had us write an essay on whether we agree with Brooks.”

I was staring, truly openmouthed now, at Sam, who looked back as if all this were the most natural thing in the world. The unstated question—how the
hell
did Jim's comments in
my book club
get on the list—hung there. Fein took a breath. “I was in a meeting? With Jim? And he went into it in detail. You'd just done Wordsworth.” She paused. She was anguished. “I know it seems like spying—”

It is spying.

“Mrs. Rosenbaum.” Adler, strongly, on my flank. “You gotta understand, Jim didn't have any problem with—”

How would you know.

“He emailed us a post on your comment about Wordsworthian symbolism.”

Ah, I said after a long moment. Then I said to Sam, Why didn't you tell me you were doing this in school?

He sort of shrugged. “Sorry.” Then brightened. “It makes you look really good, Mom. Brooks thinks you're a genius.”

“Plus,” said Adler, “when two studios start racing to put a work into production, it gets really exciting.”

Howard looked at me. I didn't know this?

Know what? I was now seriously cross.

“You said you like Bellow's characters. Paramount and Columbia are competing to rush
The Adventures of Augie March
into development.”

No, I said, I didn't know, but I would never have picked that one. I would have chosen
Humboldt's Gift
.

“Really?” said Fein, Adler, Schnayer, Justin, and Howard simultaneously.

 

IT IS EARLY MARCH. HOWARD
takes Sam to LAX, arriving just after 9:00
P.M.
He has proposed taking him to dinner, but Sam has said no, Dad, thanks, and so Howard drops him curbside at Departures. Before Sam hoists his backpack, Howard, with an eye on the traffic cop, jumps out, runs around the Mercedes, gives him a quick but very strong hug and says, “I'm so proud of you.” Howard is surprised (he will comment to me on this the next morning) at how emotional Sam's leaving for Israel is for him.

Sam pats his pocket to make sure the ticket and passport are
there. He looks at his father. He says, “Why are you
proud
of me?” Howard—if he is conscious of the slightly peculiar tone in Sam's voice, he does not show it—explains that mothers feel love for their sons, but fathers feel pride.

 

A PRODUCER NAMED MARK SIEGAL
takes me to lunch. He asks have I ever thought about producing. “I mean,” he says, “your literary judgment, combined with our expertise: an incredible combination.”

I put down my fork. Mark. I was under the strict impression we were to talk about Joyce.

He nods. “Exactly. Let's talk about Joyce.”

Not about turning him into a movie, I say.

“Why not?”

Oh! He's so…What can one say? Not filmic. I start to give examples, bits and pieces of Joyce from here and there, which is how Joyce sticks to your mind, and he says, “There! You just made your first producing decision. No Joyce.”

I attend to my tomatoes.

“Look, all's I'm saying,” he says, “is concept this as a natural extension of your talents. This is what you do.”

This is not what I do.

“But it
should
be what you do.” He talks about his new production company, West 85th Street Films. What they had in development.

And then he mentions a figure. It is quite a figure. One has to wonder: How did he arrive at it? How many people had worked to come up with all these zeroes? He talks about books and stories. He talks about my name on the screen. Anne Rosenbaum. Except that it is Howard's name, I say. (For some reason, the idea of seeing it as a credit makes me voice this. It seems important, suddenly.) My name, I say, is Hammersmith.

“Oh,” says Mark. “But your name
now
.”

Well, I say. My name—now—is Rosenbaum.

“Well then,” he says, and smiles.

 

It is just before I turn to walk to my car that I mention the screenplay. I've only skimmed it, once, I say, but it seemed very interesting.

Mark says, I'll send a messenger, and then, How do you spell this guy's last name?

Capital M, c, capital M a h o n. First name Paul.

 

IN MY OFFICE AT HOME,
I put down Paul's screenplay and take off my reading glasses. I think it is very good, but I haven't read a screenplay in years, so I go to Howard's office and select a few from his shelves. I read them over. Yes, Paul's is at least this good. I make a copy of the script and put it in an envelope and tell Justin that Mark Siegal of West 85th Street Films is sending a messenger.